The complete control of the allegorical exegesis, however, is seen in the inettheval period, which ex tended froni the seventh to the fourteenth century, and which constituted throughout its larger por tion the dark age of all scholarship and learning. This portion of the period contributed practically nothing to exegesis, the only attempt in such direction being the production either of excerpts from the exegetical writings of the Fathers, or of glosses upon them, the dominant purpose in all of which work was the support of the doctrines of the Church, and their sole method the elucida tion of the hidden, allegorical Scripture sense. In the Eastern Church Origen, Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria formed the favorite sources for these compilations, while the chief compilers in the New Testament field were Nieetas of ller acleon (eleventh century) and \lacarios Ch•yso cephalos (fourteenth century). To these should be added aleumenius (died 990), Enthymius Zi gabenus (died 1118), and Theophylact (died 1107), whose commentaries, while possessing considerable original material, were after all compilativo in character. In the Western Church, where the material was drawn most ly from Ambrose, Hilary, Augustine, and Jerome, this reproductive method was most extensively followed, its more prominent exam ples in the New Testament field being Cassio dorus (died c. 580), Bede (died 735). Alcuin (died 804), Rabanns Mourns (died S56). Peter Lombard (died c.11(10), and Aquinas (died 1274) ; to whose more or less excerptive works should he added the distinctive glossaries of Strabo (died 849), Anselm of Loon (died 1117), Hugo of Saint. Caro (died 1263), and Nicolas of Lyra (died 1340). With the last-named writer, however, be gan the dawn of a better exegesis. He had a knowledge of both Hebrew and Greek, which en abled him to guard against the allegorical absurd ities that had been perpetrated upon the Church by ignorant men. While, therefore, he retained Augustine's conception of a fourfold sense in Scripture, he gave such preference to the literal sense as to make his glossary the most important contribution to exegetical study before the Refor mation. With Nicolas of Lyra should he placed Lorenzo Voila (1406-57), whose independent spirit and liberal views made his Annotations on the Yew Testament a classic in the early Refor mation times.
The exegesis of this early Reformation period was characterized by the revival of learning which marked the age. This is clearly seen in the exegetical work of Erasmus(c.1466-1536), the most conspicuous figure in this age. His publica tion of Valla's Annotations (1505), his edition of the New Testament in Greek, with comments on his emendations of the Vulgate text and ex planations of different Scripture passages (1516), and even his more elaborate paraphrases of the Gospels and Epistles (1517-24), all of which had profound influence upon the growing, Reformation thought, were conceived more in appreciation of the scholastic value of the orig inal language of Scripture for doctrinal truth than in appreciation of the doctrine itself. Under similar influence of humanism, but with more of the Reformation attitude toward the doctrinal truth, stood Faber Stapulensis (c.1450-1536), who produced a new Latin translation of the Pauline Epistles, aecompanied by a commentary (1512), a commentary on the Gospels (1522), and also on the Catholic Epistles (1525), and the first French version of the entire Scriptures—the New Testament being issued in 1523, five years before the Old—a version which formed the basis of the translation of Olivetan (1535) ; and also Justus Jonas (1493-1555), the first of whok commentaries (Corinthians, 1520) represented the humanism of Erasmus, but whose later work (Acts, 1524) was written in the evangelical spirit of the Reformation.
With the Reformation came a new era of exe gesis. The scholarship of humanism continued, but with it was united a new view introduced by the Reformation movement, which regarded the Bible as the sole and infallible rule of faith by personal interpretation. It was this personal element which formed the soul of the Protestant movement. The revival of learning had made the Scriptures an object of extraordinary study, but to the reformer these Scriptures were not merely a book for learning; they stood in a supreme way as a living revelation from God, the centre and circumference of which was Jesus Christ. Upon Him naturally, therefore, all exegesis was focused, and from Him it gathered a personal relation toward all the Scriptures which it could not otherwise have had. This combination of the scholarly and the personal produced a class of commentaries and expositions which, while bur dened with the great dogmatic controversies of the times, were singularly direct in method and personal in application. This is seen most markedly in Luther (1483-1546) and Zwingli (14841531), the former of whom in his compre hensive commentary on Galatians, and the latter in his fragmentary expositions of Matthew and Acts, and some of the Epistles, made the basis of their work the literal sense of Scripture and its value for the individual religious life. These characteristics are evident also in Melanchthon's (1497-1560) Expositions (Romans, 1522; John, 1523; Colossians, 1527; Gospels generally, 1544), the feature in which is not so much the classical learning of this remarkable scholar, that for two centuries exerted such a commanding influence on German education, as the rational method used and the ethical emphasis given to the truth. And even in the great commentaries (covering all the New Testament excepting the Apocalypse) of Cal vin (1509-64), who was preminently the theo logian of the Reformation, this scientific method and this practical element are persistently in evidence. Yet with all the commentators and ex positors of this period, the very emphasizing of the religious purpose of their work, and the centring of the idea with which they worked upon Christ, made inevitable more or less of a return to the old fault of allegorizing; though as between Lutheran and Reformed scholars it was the former who fell more frequently into this error, and the latter who developed more consist ently the grammatieo•historical principles of in terpretation with which humanism had endowed the Reformation. These different tendencies are seem on the one side, in the New Testament work produced by the following Lutheran exegetes: Strigel (1111'11 1569), llrenz (died 1570), Camera rills (died 1574). Flaeins Illyrieus (died 1575). Chemnitz (died 1586). Crueiger (died 1597)• and rilvtrams (died MOO) ; and, on the other side, in the New Testament work of the following Re formed expositors: PeMecums (died 1556), Mem eel (died 1563), Bullinger (died 1575), and Beza (died 1605).